105. Creative Monogamy with Dr. Joli Hamilton

Today I’m super excited to be talking to Joli Hamilton an AASECT certified sex educator about creative monogamy. It’s all about finding the right relationship style for your unique self.

Who is Joli?
Dr. Joli Hamilton is the relationship coach for couples who color outside the lines. She is a research psychologist,TEDx speaker, and AASECT certified sex educator. Joli’s also the author of the best-selling book Project Relationship: The Entrepreneur's Action Plan for Passionate, Sustainable Love. She has spent the past two decades studying and reimagining what love can be if we open our imaginations to possibility. Joli helps people create partnerships that are custom-built for their authentic selves, no more shrinking, pretending, or hiding required.

How did Joli get started in creative monogamy?
She got there by making all the mistakes, like so many educators find themselves having to study out of their own problems first. She was married to someone, fell in love with someone else, and had no idea what to do. So she started studying, but she couldn’t find a guide to help craft a creative monogamous or non monogamous agreement that would work for her.
She’s just out here being what she wished had existed in the world.

What is creative monogamy?
It is a process that two individuals enter into that involves thought experiments, discussions, conversation, fun, and a lot of experiments to come to agree on exactly what we are doing in this relationship together, and where we’re allowing for expansion and things that might not be exclusive. It’s about creating the relationship that you want to have. 

What does the process look like?
First each person needs to enter a dialog with themselves. Ask yourself, what are your values, what do you want, how did you learn about relationships, what is impacting you in relationships in patterns throughout your life.
Get clear about what we actually want, and what our boundaries are.
Then you  go through what the wants are and go through prioritizing and figuring out not necessarily what the most wanted is but more what feels safe to explore now. 

What are the challenges that can come up when the negotiation process is happening?
Some of the stuff that comes up is going to trigger your partner. It’s just inevitable.  Learning to accept that you might not get a positive answer opens up space for you to bravely vulnerably share, and then wait and see, figure out where this might go, or reclaim it and figure out how you can meet  it yourself. If you can prioritize growth over comfort, you will come out of this leveled up, excited, passionate about growing and learning together.

Project Relationship: The Entrepreneur’s Action Plan for Passionate, Sustainable Love
She wrote this book  because she knew she wanted to have something in this world to point to and say “here are some basic tools to be really helpful for you to have the relationship you wish to have”. She didn’t write it specifically for non monogamy, or to solve any one problem. It’s a 12 step action plan for adding tools to your tool kit for how you do relationships.

If you’re not happy with where you’re at right now, or even if you are happy, there’s still so much more available to you. You don’t know what you don’t know. 

Resources
Ethical Slut

Connect with Joli!
Website: www.ListentoJoli.com
Book: